Screens with Arab Labor: Season 2

Israel’s leading satirist

If we were to commission Sayed Kashua himself to write this highly deserved tribute, the prose would be originally composed in the most up-to-date impeccable Hebrew. On the surface, it would be dismissive of the recipient and skeptical about the award itself. At first glance, the essay would seem to have been written off-handedly, to be mainstream and perhaps even superficial. Yet once the breathtaking final punch line landed, readers would feel obliged to reread the entire piece. They would then notice its opulence of subtleties, its poignant and pungent critical messages, ones that make the average Jewish-Israeli reader passionately embrace this Arab-Israeli author and, at the same time, feel extremely embarrassed about the often problematic reality of everyday life for the Arab-Israeli minority that Sayed Kashua’s mirror boldly reflects.

Kashua’s satire manages, miraculously, both to skewer everyone and somehow bring Arabs and Jews together in wincing, barrier-breaking laughter. He was born in 1975 in the Arab town (currently city) of Tira, in the heartland of Israel’s Arab population. His grandfather was killed in the 1948 war and his father became an extreme left-wing activist who spent long periods under administrative detention. This radical Arab background to Kashua’s childhood soon fused with the utmost middle-of-the-road Hebrew culture after he enrolled at a prestigious boarding school for gifted children in Jerusalem.

In the past decade Kashua has published extensively, complementing his satirical columns in Israeli weeklies as well as Ha’aretz with his two critically acclaimed and incredibly popular novels, Dancing Arabs (2002) and Let It Be Morning (2004). In 2007, the Israeli sitcom he wrote, Arab Labor, premiered on Israel’s Channel 2 TV, and its second season debuts this year (see page 12). A documentary profile, Sayed Kashua: Forever Scared, was completed in 2009. He is currently working on a new novel, Second Person Singular, having won the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew authors in 2005.

Atypically, Kashua, who lives with his family in Jerusalem, chooses to do all his writing in Hebrew rather than his native Arabic. His explanation is complex: Not only does he consider literary Arabic too formal and distant for his colloquial style, but the Arab readership is not entirely open to his harsh (however subtle on the surface) social criticism. His utterly unorthodox choices have thus put Kashua under fire from every direction in Israel. He is often accused of being a self-hating Palestinian as well as an ungrateful Israeli citizen. Kashua is the perpetual exile by choice, the rightful heir to Ephraim Kishon (Israel’s leading satirist of the 1950s–70s) and a living example that true empathy starts when we can laugh at ourselves.—Donny Inbar

Donny Inbar, Ph.D., is the Associate Director for Arts and Culture at the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation and formerly served as Cultural Attaché for San Francisco's Consulate General of Israel

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Freedom of Expression Award honors the unfettered imagination, which is the cornerstone of a free, just and open society. Sayed Kashua will accept his award following the San Francisco screening of Arab Labor: Season 2 on Wednesday, July 28.

SFJFF’s Freedom of Expression Award statuette is the creation of San Francisco–based, Moscow-born sculptor Misha Frid, whose design symbolizes “the never extinguished flame of Jewish daring and creativity.”

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